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The tragic hero and the tragic
Member rating: No Rating | Words: | Submitted: Fri Sep 17 2004
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Shakespeare's tragedies are, for the most part, stories of one person, the "hero," or at most two, to include the "heroine." Only the Love Tragedies (Romeo and Juliet; Antony and Cleopatra) are exceptions to this pattern. In these plays, the heroine is as much at the center of action as the hero. The rest of the tragedies, including Macbeth, have single stars, so the tragic story is concerned primarily with one person. THE TRAGIC HERO AND THE TRAGIC "STORY" * The tragic story leads up to, and includes, the death of the hero * The suffering and calamity are exceptional * They befall a conspicuous person * They are themselves of a striking kind * They are, as a rule, unexpected * They are, as a rule, contrasted with previous happiness and/or glory On the one hand (whatever may be true of tragedies elsewhere), no play that ends with the hero alive...
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